Hop growing community mourns "big character"
Hop farms cleaning up after Motueka floods. Trump's tactic hitting Mexican beer sales. Winter Ales Festival reviewed. Auckland Beer Week programme out. Are you a beer snob — the Peroni test.
Welcome to Friday Night Beers, your weekly wrap of all things beer in New Zealand and beyond.
It’s been a wild week all around the country, especially in the Tasman region where a number of hop farms were submerged by floods that left the hop farming community grieving following the death of Peter Lines, a hop grower and brewer.
Peter was struck by a tree when trying to clear flood damage on his farm in Wai-iti.
The Tasman mayor Tim King said the death had shocked the community.
“He was a big character, part of a multi-generational farming family and a significant part of the community.”
Peter’s family had been growing hops for around 170 years and he had worked in hops for more than 50 years after leaving school at 13.
Peter also had a brewery on his farm, Hop Farm Brewing, where he brewed with the help of his friend and neighbour Colin Oldham of New Hoplands.
I spoke to Peter around 18 months ago for a story about his “old school” techniques. And it’s fair to say I spent most of the interview chuckling. He was straight-talking, funny, humble, wise. It’s easier to see why he’s been described as a “‘big character”. Peter was one of those unique people who are very much at home in their own skin.
I thought it was worth sharing the link of that story I did with Peter in the hope it gives you some sense of who he was.
Peter Lines — A Life In Hops | Pursuit of Hoppiness
Dormant hops likely to survive Tasman floods
The good news, if I can use that term given the Tasman region us still under a state of emergency, is that the hop plants submerged under metres of flood water are likely to do OK once the waters recede.
Motueka hop farmer Brent McGlashan estimated the flood waters were around 4m deep in some areas. he said the silver lining was the fact this is the time of year when hops go dormant.
“It’s not all doom and gloom — the hops will recover if they don’t get more wet feet. The plants are shut down at this time of year. It’s like putting them in fridge, they're not really taking up anything from the soil, they’re hibernating.”
The other positive to the 1 in 100 year flood was that it came before farmers had put up strings for the hops. Stringing usually happens in mid-August and a flood at that time of year would have been far more devastating.
“And you could say, if there you’re going to have a serious flood, possibly the safest time to have one, with the least economic effect, is this time of the year when there's no strings up.”
The Tasman region was hit with around 250mm of rain in a 48-hour period last week and that fell on already wet ground.
The Motueka River reached record flow rate according to the Tasman District Council, peaking at 2785 cubic metres per second.
McGlashan, whose Mac Hops farm is next to the river, said recent improvements to the stop banks in the area prevented and huge disaster.
“At that flow rate and velocity of water, another couple of hours with that level of rain would have been a serious disaster for Motueka town.”
The main damage is to fences, irrigation pumps and sheds close to water ways as well as the sheer amount of debris that needs to be cleaned up.
“Some growers close to waterways have lost parts of their hop gardens that have washed away.
“A lot of it is now about the inconvenience and money that doesn’t need to be spent to get things cleaned up.”
Beer of the Week No 1
I thought I’d start the first dispatch of July, with a non-alcoholic beer as inspiration for anyone trying Dry July. (And yes, the irony of “dry” July amidst widespread flooding is not lost on me!)
But for the rest of the month, I’ll profile one non-alc each week.
I’m starting this week with the current cream of the crop — Bach Brewing’s All Day Non-Alcoholic Hazy IPA. This beer took out a gold medal at the recent Australian International Beer Awards and while I’ve always preferred the “Original” (clear) IPA, this one blew me away. It’s got such a great depth of flavour, textured mouthfeel and pinpoint bitterness, it’s hard to believe there’s no alcohol in it.
Money For Jam — Podcast S1, E3 available now
The latest podcast episode has just dropped, featuring Bruce Turner of Urbanaut Brewing talking about their dessert-flavoured Hazy IPAs, Terpene beers, the return of the blenders and much more. It’s a really fascinating insight into how the brewery started with one idea about the beer they’d sell and ended up making something completely different to meet demand.
Dusty’s Beer of the Week
Parrotdog’s latest release and the 29th iteration in the series is a 7% Red IPA hopped with Simcoe and the legendary 4 C-hops, driving punchy notes of grapefruit, pineapple, apricot and berry. The mouthfeel is resiny viscous piney with a blast of citric bitterness, a lingering toffee caramel finish binds the best red of the year. — Dusty
I heartily endorse this review. This beer is a-maz-ing. — Michael
Beer of the Week No 2
I wrote last week about Duncan’s Research Kemicle NZ IPA taking out the Smith’s NZ IPA Challenge in Queenstown … and I can say, hand on heart, the judges were absolutely spot-on.
This is an absolutely terrific beer that contains a multitude of nuanced flavour yet brings it altogether seamlessly.
It starts off with dank and diesel on the nose which gives way to bruised oranges and grapefruit zest before sliding towards more tropical notes and swerving to a long, dry herbal bitterness. A really coherent and flavour-deep drop.
And do yourself a favour, don’t drink this too cold … It benefits from being out of the fridge for a little bit, more around the 8C mark than fridge-like 4C.
Cardrona Hotel for sale
If you ever fancied owning an iconic pub, now’s your chance!
Famous 162-year-old Cardrona pub put up for sale
Tim’s Beer of the Week
You thought it was safe. You thought the fresh hop season was over, and so did I to be honest… but we were wrong. Michael touched on this fresh hop double collab between Liberty and Boneface last Friday, but as another recipient of the surprise beers I thought I should take a closer look at the Liberty Fresh Hop Imperial Pilsner.
The gist of it is that owners Mike Neilson and Joe Wood (of Boneface and Liberty respectively) discovered a section of Riwaka hops in Motueka that had been overlooked during the harvest. A bit of a Shrek the sheep scenario, but I’ll bet this one smelled a lot better.
With aroma in mind, this one gets off to a bang with a hit of overripe citrus, pungent gooseberry and a deep dank late harvest diesel. Evoking in no small way the aroma of the dubiously tax-free liquid you’d catch your rural neighbour pouring into his ute…
Not to be left out, the palate carries just as much heft, with more superb citrus, dank herbals and an absolute density of flavour that makes that 7% ABV drink more like 10. Topping it all off is a supremely aromatic bitter finish that keeps those heavy hop flavours flying straight. Hopefully just the first foray we’ll see into more ‘late harvest’ fresh hopped beers (or conventional ones for that matter). — Tim Newman
Auckland Beer Week programme out now
Once again Maree Shaw has done an outstanding job herding cats (i.e. breweries, taprooms and bars) to create a sensational programme for Auckland Beer Week, which runs from August 2-9 in the 09.
The highlight for me has to be the Galbraith’s x Hallertau “50th birthday” special closing event at Galbraith’s. The hosts are celebrating 30 years and Hallertau are clocking up their 20th.
The pair will be launching their 50 Years of Beer NZ IPA Collab brewed with whole cone hops fromHop Revolution. You can also expect a full line up of cask conditioned real ale and take a trip down memory lane with the return of an old favorite, Bitter & Twisted ESB, which has not been seen for 5 years!
On the guest taps there will be some tasty brews from Hallertau as well as some library bottle stock from their cellar.
2025 Auckland Beer Week presented by Brewaucracy
Winter Ales a triumph
A loyal reader in Wellington sent me the following story about the Winter Ales Festival held last weekend in Wellington:
“Last Friday and Saturday the Winter Ales Festival took place in central Wellington for the first time in a few years. 100 lucky punters each day were able to taste beers from around the motu and even from Sydney’s One Drop (thanks Ryan from Beervana for donating a keg of One Drop Bee Line).
“While the festival was small, it was a great celebration of the darker, warmer, stronger and all-round wintry beer styles.
“I worked on one of the bars on day two of the festival and it was interesting to see which beers sold out first.
“Duncans Carrot Cake, a spiced pastry ale, was the first to sell out. It was like a carrot cake in liquid form!
“Next to go was One Drop’s Bee Line, a salty caramel honeycomb pastry stout [10.8%abv]. What a winner! Hopefully this beer will pop up again at Beervana in August.
“Another great beer to sell out was the Shining Peak Bright Star, a chocolate almond stout. This beer was the winner of the People's Choice vote for the Saturday session. The People’s Choice winner for the Friday session was Mixed Culture Peach, a barrel aged fruited sour brewed by Field Below.
“One of the perks of volunteering at this event is you get to sample each of the 22 beers on offer — honourable mention to Lord Almighty Ursus Stout, a 10-year-old imperial sweet stout (12%) — heaven on earth!
Hats off to the organisers Denise Garland and Dave Wood for a great event!”
Beer of the Week No 3
Hop Federation have dropped a new release in the form of an NZH-109 Hazy IPA. First, what a great label. Second, what a tremendous beer and another exclamation mark of approval for trial hop NZH-109. This is fresh summer fruit in a glass. I don’t think I’ve had a beer that produced such pronounced nectarine aromas. They just flowed out of the glass, and instead of being rain-soaked in the dead of winter I felt I was standing in the Central Otago sun eating fresh peaches and nectarines. The texture is super smooth and the finish is gentle, easy bitterness with no harsh edges. Great hop, excellent brewing.
Are you a beer snob, the Peroni test
I remember writing here about the night we sought refuge at a friend’s house during the Auckland storms of 2023 when we had to evacuate our property and the only beer in their fridge was Peroni, which, on that night, in that place, was the absolute best beer I could have drunk.
I was taken back to that moment thanks to this light-hearted comic strip by David Bailey, published in The Pellicle:
David Bailey's Just Beer Things #22 — The Snob — Pellicle
Trump’s tactics hitting beer sales
There’s an interesting correlation going on between sales of Mexican beer in the United States and president Donald Trump’s deportation of Hispanic immigrants.
Dave Infante, in his Hop Takes column, wrote recently:
“By now you likely know that people of all backgrounds and immigration statuses, and especially Hispanic folks, are being targeted by masked federal shock troops as part of President Donald Trump’s domestic reign of terror. Beer executives certainly know. After all, Hispanic drinkers are a key demographic! That they’re staying home en masse for fear of being disappeared by secret police and deported to foreign concentration camps without even a whiff of due process is, y’know, not good for sales! Yet industry leaders are struggling to find the words to condemn this grotesque authoritarian spectacle on even the most self-interested grounds. Earlier this month, Constellation Brands’ Bill Newlands allowed that “the immigration question” is “sort of ‘anti’ our business.”
Constellation Brands, which owns prominent Mexican brands Corona, Modelo and Pacifico, has lost around 25% of its stock value since Trump took office. Around 35% of its overall customer base, and half Modelo drinkers, are Hispanic, Infante noted.
Your weekend read
Dylan Jauslin is one of the best beer writers in the business through his blog — The Bottleneck.
He’s been quiet for some time but he re-entered the fray with an almighty splash this week.
I advocate setting aside some time and make sure you’re fully focused because this is a wild ride of a story that starts with an innocent google search for a brewery website before going down a giant rabbit hole that takes him to practically the other side of the world.
It’s intricately researched and devilishly detailed:
I Found… Something? | The Bottleneck
That’s me for another week. Catch you again in seven days, when hopefully the weather has improved.
Michael